The Watchman (19 page)

The man answered without hesitation.

“Jorge Petrada.”

“Why were you watching my house?”

“For de girl.”

He didn’t even blink, saying it. Pike decided he was telling the truth. Jorge didn’t know Alex Meesh.

“Did Meesh tell you to find her?”

“I don’ know dis Meesh, I dunno.”

“Who told you to find her?”

“Luis. Luis say.”

“Who’s Luis?”

Jorge glanced at the passports, so Pike held up the man with the scarred lip. The one with the picture.

“Si. Luis.”

“Luis is your boss?”

“Si.”

Luis didn’t look like a boss. Bosses didn’t attempt kidnappings in Beverly Hills or get into gunfights. Bosses told other people to take all the chances.

Pike checked his watch, then went back to the window—time was passing, and one or more of the other men would likely return soon. The manager was still smoking, but now he was on a cell, laughing about something. Pike went back to the bed.

“How did you know where to find the girl?”

“Luis. He say your address.”

“How did you know our location in Eagle Rock and Malibu?”

“I dunno thees Eagle Rock. I dunno.”

“You tried to kill her in Eagle Rock and Malibu. You tried up north in the Bay. Who told you where to find her?”

“No no no. I just got here, man. I been here only two days. I don’ know nutheen’ about dat.”

Pike took the airline tickets from the bag and checked the flight dates. Jorge was telling the truth again. He had flown in with Alteiri only two days ago. Bloch arrived twelve days ago. Luis had been here for sixteen days. Luis would be the man with information.

Pike was returning the tickets to the bag when his cell phone vibrated. It was Cole. Pike stared at Jorge as he answered the call.

“Yes?”

Cole said, “Just left her. She’s doing fine.”

“Good.”

“I dropped off some food and magazines, stuff like that. I brought a coffeemaker so she doesn’t have to drink that stuff you make.”

“She wanted strawberries. Strawberries and bananas.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“What’s wrong? Everything good on your end?”

“Good.”

“Okay. You need anything, call.”

Pike closed his phone. He was staring at Jorge, and Jorge was scared.

Pike said, “Who is Donald Pitman?”

“I dunno.”

“Have you heard that name?”

“No. I dunno know who dat is.”

“Bud Flynn?”

“No.”

“Who does Luis work for?”

The man looked surprised that Pike didn’t know, and straightened against the tape. He seemed to grow stronger for the first time since he wet his pants.

“Esteban Barone. We all of us work for Barone. This is why you have made a mistake, my friend. You will know fear if you know Barone.”

“What is he? A gangster? A businessman? You understand what I’m asking?”

“You know dis word, cartel?”

“Si.”

A coarse smile split the man’s face, as if he took pride in being part of this thing.

“Barone, he have many soldiers. How many you have?”

Pike took the pictures of the five dead men from his pocket. He held them up one by one, watching the man’s face darken.

Pike said, “I’m evening the odds.”

The man muttered something in Spanish, but Pike did not understand.

Pike went to the window again. The manager was gone, but the office door was still open. Pike wanted the door closed. He planned to drive away in the Corolla with Jorge, but for now he returned to the bed.

“How many of you are left?”

The man spit.

This time Pike did not move slowly. He dug his thumb into a dim mak point between the man’s ribs, beneath his pectoral muscle.

“Siete!”

Pike released the pressure.

“Four of you sleep here. Where do the other three sleep?”

“I don’ know nutheen’ about dat.”

Pike dug his finger into the dim mak point again, and this time the man shrieked. Pike dug harder and held it until the man sobbed. Then he released the pressure.

“Where do they sleep?”

“I don’ know where dey stay. Carlos, he put us here from de LAX. He don’ say where dey are. He bring us to Luis, an’ Luis say dis where we stay. I not even see dem!”

Pike sat back. Carlos. A new player had entered the game.

“Who’s Carlos?”

“Norte Americano. He meet us at de airport. He bring us here an’ take care of us.”

“What’s his last name?”

The man glanced at the window, and Pike looked with him. The thin, airy drape showed the roofline and the sun glinting off the cars, but nothing else.

“All I know, Carlos. He give us things. De phone, de guns.”

“All right. Where are the others right now?”

“I don’ know. I have my job, dey have dere’s.”

The man wet his lips. He was growing more nervous and glanced at the window again. Pike wondered if he had seen something.

“They coming back now, Jorge?”

“No. No, dey not comin’ back.”

Pike drew his pistol as he watched the window.

Jorge said, “Tonight dey come. Dey come tonight.”

A shadow crossed the drapes, then three fast explosions shattered the glass. The drapes billowed in like a sail catching air, but Pike was already on the floor; the door crashed open, Luis with a gun, shooting even as Pike fired back, his shots punching Luis into the wall. Then the room was silent. Luis slid down the wall, leaving a red smear.

Pike stayed on the floor, but no more men appeared. He glanced at Jorge, but Jorge’s head now sagged, and most of his forehead was missing. Pike went to the door, irritated that he had failed to control the situation. Luis had probably heard Jorge shrieking or was tipped off by the drapes, but either way the man who was likely his best source of information was dead. Now, the overweight man had come out of his office and a housekeeper stood at the far end of the motel. Pike pulled Luis out of the way and closed the shattered door.

Pike holstered his gun, then went through Luis’s pockets. He found a cell phone, keys, twenty-four dollars, and a torn scrap of newspaper with a phone number in the margin. Pike put all of it into the backpack, then went back to the drapes. The overweight man had returned to his office. He would be calling the police. The housekeeper was inside with him, peeking out the open door.

Pike hurried into the bathroom. It was a cramped space right out of the fifties, with cheesy tile, crumbly grout, and a small opaque window over the tub. The housekeeper had left two glasses wrapped in plastic on the lavatory. Pike took them to the bodies. He removed a glass from its plastic, folded Jorge’s fingers onto the glass, then placed the glass back in its wrapper. He did the same with Luis, and that’s when he saw the watch. Luis was wearing a platinum Patek Philippe that was as out of place on this man as a diamond on a pile of dung. Pike took off the watch and turned it over. The back of the watch was engraved:
For my lovely George
.

Pike put the watch and the glasses into the backpack, wiped the surfaces he had touched, and trotted into the bathroom as he heard the approaching sirens. Pike broke the bathroom window with his pistol, hoisted himself through, and dropped into an alley. He hooked the backpack over his shoulder and trotted around the side of the building. He slowed when he reached the street, and walked past the motel office as the first patrol car arrived. People on both sides of the street were hiding behind cars and in doorways as if they might be shot, and others ran into stores. Pike watched like everyone else for a moment, then continued to his car. He drove away as the second police car arrived.

It occurred to him then as it had in the past that policemen were people who ran toward danger. Everyone else ran away.

PIKE PULLED into a shopping center near the base of Griffith Park. A high-pitched whine hummed in his ears from the gunshots, and his shoulders ached. Later that night when the girl was sleeping, he would put himself in a peaceful green forest. Jorge and Luis would fade like spirits between the trees, but now the shooting lived in him and kept him on edge. It was a good edge. It helped him stay groovy.

The motel manager would describe him as a man wearing sunglasses, a brown shirt, and jeans. Anonymous. He had been careful to leave no prints. Nothing about the bodies or crime scene would point to Eagle Rock or Malibu or himself, until—and if—the bullets were matched, and that would take weeks. The police would have no reason to make the connection, and Pitman would have no reason to take notice. Jorge and Luis would be two more unidentified bodies in the City of Angels; an open homicide with questions but no answers, likely a drug buy gone bad.

Pike reloaded his pistol, then looked through the things he had taken. He went through the papers and maps first, searching for something immediately useful like Meesh’s name or the name of a hotel, but found nothing. He would go over these things more closely with Cole, so for now he put them away.

He gave a cursory glance to the watch and the guns, but hesitated with the girl’s picture. He imagined Luis showing it to the others; telling them, This is the one. He saw Meesh giving the picture to Luis; saying, We’re gonna kill her. Pike stared at the picture, thinking, No, you won’t.

Pike brushed over the other things because he wanted the phones. The phones might give him a direct and immediate connection to Alexander Meesh.

The two cell phones were identical and not unlike the phone Pike now used—bought anonymously with cash and front-loaded with prepaid calling time. Pike studied Jorge’s phone first, then used the menu to bring up Jorge’s number and calling history. Jorge had made only three calls, and all were to the same number. Pike guessed it was probably Luis’s number—the new guys got into town, Luis would give them his number, tell them, Here, this is how you reach me. Pike pressed the send button on Jorge’s phone to redial the number. Luis’s phone rang. Pike turned off Jorge’s phone and returned it to the backpack.

Luis had made many calls. Pike scrolled through a lengthy list that included at least a dozen calls to Ecuador. Each entry showed the number called, the date, and the time of the call. Later, he and Cole would copy the numbers, but now Pike was more interested in the recent calls.

Luis made his final call only four minutes before he died. Luis would have been at the motel, and had likely called for help or to inform the others. Pike scrolled back through the call history and found Luis had called this same number five or six times every day. No other number had been called as often.

Pike wondered if it was Meesh.

Maybe Luis had heard him with Jorge and called Meesh to see how Meesh wanted him to play it.

Pike pressed the send button to redial the number. The phone at the other end rang four times. The person at that end would see the number and think Luis was calling. Calling back to report what happened in the room.

A man answered on the fifth ring.

“Did you get the sonofabitch?”

The man had a deep, resonant voice, but did not sound like a gangster from Denver or Ecuador. His voice was cultured, and held a trace of something Pike thought might be French.

“Hello? Did we get cut off? Can you hear me?”

Pike said, “Alex Meesh.”

“Wrong number.”

The man hung up.

Pike pressed the send button again.

This time the man answered on the first ring. “Luis?”

“Luis and Jorge are dead.”

The line was silent. This time when the man spoke, his voice was wary.

“Who is this?”

“The sonofabitch.”

The man hesitated again.

“What do you want?”

“You.”

Pike turned off the phone.

John Chen

JOHN CHEN was terrified after Pike called. He was so scared he thought he might toss his cookies; Pike on the phone, not even waiting for an answer, just growling out the threat—

“Meet me outside in an hour.”

Yeah. Right.

First thing Chen did was run to the bathroom. He was convinced Pike was going to kill him. Pike probably blamed him for losing the guns, and would probably beat him to death in full view of everyone.

Chen paced in the bathroom for over an hour, sweating buckets, getting on and off the pot, trying to figure out what to do. He considered asking the security guards to follow him to his car, but decided the only chance he had of talking his way out of it was by pretending everything was cool. Make like he could get back the guns. Make up a believable lie.

Chen crept out of the bathroom, made his way to the lobby, and peered through the glass doors into the parking lot. He saw his ’tangmobile easily enough, but he did not see Pike, or Pike’s red Cherokee, or the green Lexus Pike used to shag the hottie. Chen stepped outside, glanced back inside at the waiting area, then scanned the parking lot again.

Still no Pike.

Chen wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe Pike had already come and gone. Maybe Pike had not yet arrived, and Chen could still get away!

Chen sprinted for the ’tangmobile. He hadn’t planned to run; he just
ran
. He flat-out hauled ass, wheezing and puffing after only fifty feet, but stoked on adrenaline. Chen jabbed his remote ’cause he had it made—he was home free, MOTHERFUCKER!!—and was throwing open that beautiful German-built door when—

—Pike spoke behind him.

“John.”

“Ahh!”

Chen jumped sideways, but Pike once again caught him and held the door.

“Get in.”

Pike was carrying a black backpack. Chen was certain it contained a gun.

Chen latched onto the door like a cat clinging to a sofa, the nervous tic under his eye popping in spasms.

Chen said, “Please don’t kill me.”

Pike pointed inside.

“Don’t be stupid. Get in.”

Pike pushed him in, then went around to the passenger side. Chen couldn’t take his eyes off the backpack.

“I know how this works. You’re going to take me someplace deserted. You’re going to shoot me in the head—”